Never Say Forever

His words make me think of Lulu. He’s not right where she’s concerned. If her biological father wanted nothing to do with either her or her mother, then that wasn’t love. His fucking loss, I think. That kid has enough love in her life without him. And maybe I’ll never fill his shoes, but I’ll give it my all to fill her heart. In fact, we have a date this afternoon at The Russian Tea Room, just the two of us. That’s why I’m wearing a suit and why Lulu is going to wear a pretty dress. It’s what afternoon tea dictates. At least, in her book.

I’m just happy she hasn’t requested I wear the crown. Because I probably would.

“Question.” Tucker’s voice brings my attention back to him. “If you’re really doing this, how are you splitting your shares? Between the team?”

“Fiduciary concerns overcoming fraternal?”

“We’ll always be brothers. That’s why, as your second in command, I think you’ll be giving them to me.” A grin cracks his features, and it echoes on my own face, though for completely different reasons.

“I didn’t say I was giving up the money, Tucker. Just my position and, of course, the salary that goes along with it. My share of the profits will still come to me. It’s all in my letter of resignation.”

“Like you need the money,” he grumbles, picking up a pen from his desk.

“You’ve done okay out of this.”

“I’ve done fucking amazing. But in the words of someone very smart, greed is fucking good. And if I know you, and I do,” he says, waving the pen admonishingly. “You’ll donate your share of the profits to some lame-ass charity.” He knows me so well. “Well, I guess I’d better ask around to see if anyone wants to take over for you.”

“As director?”

“No, in the bedroom. You bring in the fancy crowd, sure. But maybe one or two of the other guys wants in on the same action. Give the ladies what they want,” he says with all the finesse of a snake oil seller. “Or maybe one of the girls wants in on that action.”

“No girls,” I find myself growling immediately. “Ardeo isn’t that kind of operation.”

“That’s kind of sexist, Car. What’s good for the goose has got to be good for the gander.”

“No. Fucking. Girls.” A wash of heat crashes over me, my fist balling by my sides, my skin seared by a million hot pins. Anger rarely gets the better of me these days, but it’s like a black veil when it does. And right now, I don’t feel right. I feel amped, itchy, and uncontrolled. But I can’t step outside of myself. Not now. I can’t let it get the better of me. Judging by his thoughtful expression, Tucker knows that, too. He’s one of the few people who has seen what my temper can do.

“Okay, no girls. No problem,” he answers with a shrug as though he doesn’t really care either way. He might know about my temper, but he doesn’t know about my grandfather. He doesn’t know about me. About what my temper did.

I blink heavily, forcing the images, the anger away, and nod decisively, just once. “Good.”

“Does she know about you, this woman? About what you do at Ardeo?”

A dozen things run through my head all at once as faces and questions from the past are suddenly staring at me. My parents. My siblings. The last day I spent with my grandfather. Clouds of debris over Manhattan morphing into primitive villages in Afghanistan. People I know, and people I don’t. A sea of dusty faces tracked with tears.

“Car? You okay?”

I look up, coming back to the moment, shaking off the clinging thoughts as though they were droplets of water.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Fine, fierce, and hiding things. “She doesn’t know. Not everything. She’s—the woman I love.” I can’t bring myself to say her name in his presence, just as I can’t bring myself to tell her any of this. The worst of this.

“That’s the way, brother. Admit nothing. Deny everything.”

Defend the indefensible. Some secrets will stay with me until the day I die.

30

Fee

“I wonder what parents did before the advent of TV.” I step out from the laundry room a little drunkenly, tightening my ponytail with both hands, freeing up my boobs for Carson’s wandering hands. “Stop that!”

“Come back into the laundry room, little girl. I want to show you something.”

“I think I’ve seen it already,” I sing-song back, trying to step away without giggling. Failing on both counts as he pulls my back against his hard chest.

“You haven’t seen it enough.”

“Really? Didn’t my attentions just leave it looking like a deflated pink sock?” I’d only gone in there to get clean socks out of the drier for Lulu when Carson had followed me in. Not that I’m complaining. Not at all.